In 1927, together with the German Irish physicist Walter Heitler, London published the first quantum mechanical explanation of the molecular bond in hydrogen molecules and worked further to found chemistry upon quantum mechanics. (The London force is named after him. Seevan der Waals forces.) He then attacked the low-temperature phenomena of superconductivity and superfluidity, which he understood as macroscopic quantum effects. With his brother, Heinz London, he developed the first successful phenomenological theory (1935) of superconductivity, which crucially depends on the existence of an energy gap in electron states. London also suggested that Bose-Einstein condensation is responsible for superfluidity and predicted the quantization of magnetic flux.

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relatively weak electric forces that attract neutral molecules to one another in gases, in liquefied and solidified gases, and in almost all organic liquids and solids. The forces are named for the Dutch physicist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, who in 1873 first postulated these intermolecular...

complete disappearance of electrical resistance in various solids when they are cooled below a characteristic temperature. This temperature, called the transition temperature, varies for different materials but generally is below 20 K (−253 °C).

the frictionless flow and other exotic behaviour observed in liquid helium at temperatures near absolute zero (−273.15 °C, or −459.67 °F), and (less widely used) similar frictionless behaviour of electrons in a superconducting solid. In each case the unusual behaviour...